-

bridge, but the gun kept steadily on, swung round the bend, and off up into the town. It was followed olosely by another, and yet another. Shells by this time were bursting all round them, and we were breathless for fear one should be hit. Then, just as two guns were on the bridge at the same time, came a big shell bang in the middle of the bridge; a huge smoke went up, and nothing could be seen of the bridge or of the guns. As the smoke lifted, we saw that one gun was down, the other making a big detour to avoid it it seemed as if all must be killed 8 mass of struggling men and beastsand a groan went up from the officers standing near us. But no! They picked themselves up, hauled the horses to their feet, and, as at the Military Tournament in London, quickly put on another wheel, and were up and off before you could count five. There was a roar of cheering from all the men who had been standing just below us; the officers turned, quickly made us a bow, saying, "It is our turn now," and ran off down the steps, leaving us in sole possession of the post. We stayed there another full half hour watching the crossing of the cavalry, a most impressive sight. They took the bridge at a gallop singly, lying flat on their horses' necks, the shells falling steadily on the road and on the bridge; but we did not see any of them hit, why, I cannot think, as there was soarcely a square inch, at least so it seemed to us, that was

not covered with explosives. It was getting too dark to see by this time, so we descended to find our car, which we had left under the shelter of the church tower, in a little hamlet at the foot of the hill. We were rather agitated at not finding it at once, but Whitehead soon appeared, saying that as the church tower had twice been hit while he was there, he had thought it as well to move away from its vicinity.

The next six weeks were so full of work that I have no remembrance of any particular incident. We were on the read usually by 8.30 or 9 o'clock, with six or seven hospitals to fit into the day, some close together, others as much as ten or even twenty kilometres apart. The distant ones of course lost us a lot of time getting from one to the other. At other times we would go to ene hospital and stay there all day, soreening all the wounded as they came in, marking where the bullet or broken bone was, and passing the man straight on into the operating-room, where he was operated on at once. When there was much work, the surgeons used to leave us entirely to ourselves to find and mark the bullet or piece of shell. We used, when possible, to mark its position on the skin in front, then turn the limb over, scope it again, and mark it on the side. The perpendiculars from these marks gave a right angle, and the bullet was naturally at the apex of the angle.

I remember that on one busy day we did 67 examinations in the morning. This quantity usually meant about 12 or 13 plates all to be developed and dried before next morning, and when you think that each plate takes roughly

fifteen minutes in the developer and fixative, and two hours in water, you can understand how that often before the Red Cross sent us out a developer, Mrs Hollings and I having come in from work at 10 P.M., were still developing at 2 in the morning.

We used to take all the Italian orderlies and drivers out in turn to learn the work of loading and unloading, fetch ing plates out of the car, helping to carry the wounded, &o., and they had become very useful. We found we hardly ever had to tell them a thing twice, for when once they understood the whys and wherefores of a thing they never forgot it.

V.

Another thing that is so excellent about the Italians is that they never break anything: you can trust them with even the X-Ray tubes and have no qualms. They were always willing, and never thought about their own comforts. Food, rest, nothing counted as long as we got our jobs for the day satisfactorily ended. In all the time we were in Italy I only once knew a man show insubordination, and he, I think, was rather odd in the head. He could not understand that he might not go out whenever it pleased him!

Although the Italians had kindly given Mrs Hollings and myself the honorary grade of Majors in the Italian Army, we never punished the men ourselves; if it became necessary for any small fault, we

VOL, CCIV.-NO. MCCXXXIV.

asked the Captain of the Engineers to whom our men were attached for rations and pay to give them their punishments. It usually consisted of their pay being docked for a week, or a couple of days' cells (this last they rather liked, as they used to sleep all the time).

Italian discipline always appeared to us to be much more severe than ours. Rules were very strict about the time the soldiers reported themselves at night. Any soldier found out and about after 9 o'clock P.M. was instantly looked up by the Carabinieri unless he had a special permit from his chief, which stated that he was out on duty. Soldiers going on leave had to go to the baths and be thoroughly washed and disinfected before leaving, and the same rules were observed on their return, the junior officers being shut in with the men on their return from leave and often spending the night in a room strewn with straw, all awaiting together their bath and disinfection. Several of them told us that the first night back from leave is one of the most unpleasant in the campaign, and they mostly

L

spend it walking up and down the room.

Looting of any kind is looked upon very sternly, and any man caught looting or merely souvenir - hunting is very severely punished.

You never see any drunkenness amongst the soldiers: in the two years we spent in Italy I never saw a single Italian soldier the worse for drink. In the matter of cruelty to animals the Italian Army is also very severe. The slightest hint of a soldier being cruel to his beast and he is punished very severely, men being sent to what are called the Punishment Trenches on the second report; the reason for this being not only humanity, but also expediency, as every man is taught the importance of keeping his beast fit and well for the work he has to do.

The Italian soldier is always very well turned out, and looks generally exceedingly smart. Even close up to the Front he usually wears a small white choker inside his collar, which always gives the appearance of cleanliness. How they always managed to have them clean I do not know, but somehow they always did. Their breeches were very well cut, and they certainly were the smartest looking of the Allies up at the Front.

Another thing that struck us very favourably was the absolute want of red tape. We never 8&W any of it, and I heard English officials say the same thing. There

were so seldom any difficulties made. Instead of the usual

insurmountable rules and regulations to be found in other armies, whatever we asked for was given with the best of goodwill, and in consequence we were careful to ask for as little as possible.

Another thing that impressed us very much was the cleanliness of the hospitals. Of course, we know nothing of the Base, as we were at the Front all the time, and so saw only the field hospitals and dressing stations, but the cleanliness struok us very forcibly. We had every opportunity of judging, because we were in and out of them at all times and in all places. We saw them when they were so busy with fresh cases pouring in after an action that the surgeons and orderlies did not know where to turn. them at all hours of the day and also at all hours of the night. Often when the work was heavy we stayed on all night to screen the cases as they came in, and always the same good organisation and cleanliness. One hospital I remember which had been prepared for 150 patients received 380 after a big battle; the staff, of course, was worried, but by no means lost its head, and very soon tents had been erected in the courtyard and gardens, straw mattresses or straw-stuffed sacks borrowed or made, all the men housed till they could have their wounds attended to, and the least badly wounded sent on to the other hospitals.

After an action such as the taking of Podgora and Gorizia the Labour Battalions were

turned on immediately to tidy up; and although we were generally on the roads within a couple of days, all was tidy and clean, all the horrors taken away, the roads cleared of débris and the shell-holes filled,

Our first business visit to Gorizia (we had been there once before to see the lie of the land in case we were sent for in a hurry) was an interesting one. Mrs Hollings happened to be late that morning and we started a good ten minutes after we meant to. As we got down to the bridge of Lucenico it was being shelled, so the carabiniere on duty signed to us to wait under cover of a bit of wall, and to be ready to go directly he made a sign, and then to go fast, so as to get over before another shell came. We kept our engine running, and I kept her in gear with the clutch ready to slip in the second we got the signal. When it came, we went as hard as we could at the bridge, and got across nicely as the next shell burst just behind us. The driving was not easy, as the holes in the bridge were many and large, and lots of them had been stuffed with mattresses! We buzzed up the hill past the station of Gorizia and along the main street, the Corso, a fine wide street with trees on either side-plane-trees I think they were.

The houses were knocked about a certain amount, but not nearly as much as we had expected, and not nearly as much as they were afterwards

by the Austrians. As we got opposite to the Opera House we stopped and asked a carabiniere to tell us where the hospital of the Fate Bene Fratelli was. He pointed up the next street, saying, "It is up there, but you cannot go there, it is being shelled and no one may go down the street." We argued the point, saying we had to go as we had orders, and it could not be helped if it was being shelled. We felt very noble in making this statement, but it was true all the same! The carabiniere gave in at once, and we proceeded up Via Alvarez to a place which was covered with débris, large ooping-stones, split beams, &o. We were greeted with enthusiasm by the Director, who had been expecting us, but owned he was glad we had not turned up ten minutes sooner, as we should have come in for three highexplosives (quite as well that my partner had been late that morning). Why the hospital was still in existence I don't know. Only one had hit it direct, but that one had shaken it to its foundations besides destroying the top floor and most of the next.

They proposed that we should work in the cellar, whither they had taken all the wounded; but that was impossible, as it was too damp, and we should have had short circuiting all the time, so we went on a voyage of discovery and found a small room which suited our purpose. It was only just big enough for our trestles and stretcher, and the explosions had done something odd to the

doorway, which had gone all crooked. There was also a big split in the wall, which was considerably wider by the time we had finished, but it did very well, and we soon got through our work for the morning.

The cellar full of wounded was very impressive. The darkness was only lit by a little streak of light through a crack in the wall, and one could just see the wounded wrapped in sheets or blankets lying in rows along the walls. When Mrs Hollings and I appeared at the door we heard ourselves being hailed by a high-pitched feeble voice, and on going to see who was calling we found a poor old peasant woman sitting up on a sofa; she had her head bandaged, and with her wrinkled face and bare skinny throat and outstretched arms, with the thin streak of light on her, she looked like a Rembrandt picture. The heavy darkness and the hardly-seen figures of the other wounded lying all round her added to the picturesqueness of the scene. She was terribly afraid that we should go away without her having been able to say what she wanted, and was so agitated lest we should not understand; she kept on repeating, "the signor Capitano." I tried

to reassure her, saying he was quite close, but soon made out that she wanted to tell us that he had saved her. He had gone to the top of the house when the first shell arrived and carried her down in his arms four flights of stairs, and returned to fetch another woman who was also a peasant, having been wounded in the streets. The old woman kept saying, "But I am so old, and yet he risked his life for me!" The first shell had taken most of the roof off the house, so he had indeed done a brave thing in going up to the very top to fetch her. The next shell that hit the house entirely wrecked the room where she had been, and the whole of the staircase. The name of that Captain was Captain Fadda (a Sardinian), and the old woman was an Austrian peasant. It is only an example of how the Italians treat the Austrians, whether they are their prisoners or only the peasant people in the conquered territories. We saw unfailing kindness to them wherever we went. We had many Austrian prisoners to radiograph, and the surgeons and orderlies treated them with exactly the same consideration that they gave to their own men.

Once we had been into Gorizia our work in that town became continual, so the General gave us a house there in September 1916, which we kept until we left in October 1917.

We established an orderly in the house, and used to sleep there often when our work kept us very late or when a big attack was expected, so as to be on the spot for bad cases.